The Victim and the Question of Justice

How would you react if you came face-to-face with a child-killer?
Would you want revenge? The murderer tortured, and beaten to a pulp; marked for all to see as a murdering scumbag, or would you want the murderer killed; would this finally be justice?
These are questions that grieving Mother, Anna Dean tries to answer in BBC One's four-part thriller, The Victim.

Anna Dean (Kelly Macdonald), is a Mother whose nine-year-old son Liam, was murdered by an older child, Eddie J Turner, 15 years ago.
Anna is haunted by the death of Liam everyday and believes justice will only be served when Eddie J Turner's new identity is revealed to the public. Believing that bus driver Craig Myers is Eddie J Turner, Anna releases his photograph and details online, when, not long after, Myers is brutally and viciously attacked.

This is a story about right and wrongdoings, and invites the viewer to answer the simple question; who is the victim? and what can be considered justice?

We immediately take the side of Anna Dean, a grieving Mother who wants nothing but justice for her son - who just 'wanted to be big', and his killer to get what he deserves. She feels that Liam has been let down by the system and that Turner has gotten-off lightly for his crime; being allowed to resume a new life under a new identity.
However, with a lack of evidence that Craig Myers is Eddie J Turner, we begin to doubt Craig as being the child-killer and view him more as a victim. He has been attacked twice as the result of Anna's actions, lost his job, and loses his daughter and wife after they leave him. The result of Anna's actions are devastating on a seemingly innocent mans life.

Only when Craig finally admits his identity during a Restorative Justice Council (a meeting which gives victims the chance to meet or communicate with their offenders to explain the impact of the crime), do we realise and Anna was right about his identity all along.

Later on in the final episode, Anna and Myers meet under the tunnel where Liam died and discuss the events. Myers is surprising remorseful, explaining the moment that he killed Liam out of a fit of rage as a boy.
In a scene that left a lump forming in my throat and my eyes brimming with tears, Liam's Father, Christian (Cal MacAninch) approaches with a knife and the intention to kill Myers for what he has done. But after everything that Anna has been through, she realises that murdering Myers is not a form of justice and stands between him and Christian; reminding him that Liam wanted 'to be big.'
To be the bigger man, to do what was right and in the end someone has to be big. Someone has to be the bigger person to end the never-ending cycle of victimization, even if that person may deserve it.

Amidst a beautifully tragic story and powerful performances, we are left with the final message;

'Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. 

I'll meet you there.' 

- Rumi